Suggestions for Improving the Reporting of Clinical Research: The Role of Narrative
Received 28 January 2004; received in revised form 2 July 2004 and 20 September 2004; accepted 22 September 2004. published online 03 February 2005.
This article discusses the importance of narrative in reports of medical research. Stripped of all jargon and analytic technique, a scientific investigation is a story, and it is the nuances and details of the story that make it interpretable. While guidelines such as CONSORT have greatly improved the reporting of research, such guidelines are insufficient to ensure a meaningful reporting. The provision of explanatory narrative is essential. In this article, I propose that authors and journals exploit opportunities created by the worldwide Web to post supplementary material regarding their conception of the investigation, their execution of the study, their assumptions and limitations, and their rationale for any modeling efforts. I provide examples of how such narrative could be included in reports of randomized trials, observational studies, and studies of diagnostic tests.
From the University of California–Los Angeles Emergency Medicine Center, University of California–Los Angeles School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA; and the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Institute of Health Sciences, Oxford, England
Address for correspondence: David L. Schriger, MD, MPH, University of California–Los Angeles Emergency Medicine Center, 924 Westwood Boulevard, Suite 300, Los Angeles, CA 90024-2924; 310-794-0593, fax 310-794-0599
Funding and support: The author reports this study did not receive any outside funding or support.
ABSTRACT